Discretion (The Dumonts, #1)(38)

“I didn’t invite you,” Blaise says as he finishes his coffee and saunters past me. “And I’ve told your father and sister that you usually only complicate matters. You chose to work with hotels; there’s no need for you to be here.”

“Blaise,” my father scolds him, “you’re sounding like Gautier now.”

“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Seraphine snipes.

Blaise shrugs, one hand on the door. “Just being honest. Someone here has to be.”

Then he leaves, shutting us in the room.

I jerk my thumb at the door. “Why is he even in here? Drinking your coffee?”

“His machine is broken,” my father says tiredly, flipping through papers. “And, like it or not, we do have to work together.”

“How are you, brother?” Seraphine asks, shaking the animosity away from her bright face. She comes over to me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “You look like you’ve gotten a lot of sun.”

“So much for working,” my father says under his breath.

“I was working,” I tell him, which isn’t a complete lie. “Believe me, there’s a world outside of the office.”

“Mm-hmm, so who is she?” Seraphine says with a cheeky grin.

“She?”

“You don’t take vacations, Olivier, so I have to assume that there was someone else in the picture. Someone who might convince you to relax by the sea for a week and get some sun.”

“There’s no one,” I tell her, and she looks disappointed. She’s always harping on me to find someone and settle down—if only she knew the truth about that—but I’m certainly not going to tell her about Sadie.

Which reminds me.

“By the way, have you seen Pascal lately?” I ask.

She frowns. “He was here yesterday for a minute. You know he’s always in and out.”

“I saw him at Cap-Eden-Roc,” I tell them. “Just randomly. Like he was spying on me.”

“You’re always so suspicious,” my father says, straightening up and putting his hands on his lower back with a groan.

“Everyone should be a little more suspicious,” I tell him. “Is your back okay?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” he says, waving me away and walking to the fan to adjust it. “You’d be in pain, too, if you had to deal with all of this.”

“And if you stood hunched over the desk like some raving reporter,” Seraphine says, walking over to him and giving his arm a gentle squeeze. “We know you’re in charge, but I do think while I’m in the office, you owe your daughter some respect, which means listening to what she says. Sit down.”

She tugs on his arm, and, reluctantly, he’s led over to his chair, where he sits down.

“And you’re right, Olivier,” Seraphine says to me as she wrestles with the window for a moment until she’s able to pop it open an extra inch. “We always should be more suspicious.”

“That’s not how your mother and I raised you,” my father says grumpily, taking his time to glare at both Seraphine and me.

“No, you raised us to be perfect angels,” she says, giving his shoulders a squeeze and kissing him on the top of his balding head. “But, unfortunately, your brother raised a bunch of devils, and we have to work alongside each other. In this business, it’s kill or be killed.”

“You’re family.”

“And it’s family that I’m very grateful for,” she says. My parents adopted Seraphine when she was nine years old. She was in the public system for some time before that, jumping from family to family. She says we’re the first real one she’s ever had.

She goes on, “It’s just that there really was no reason for Pascal to show up at Olivier’s hotel.”

“How did he even know I was there?” I ask.

She gnaws on her lip for a moment, but somehow it doesn’t mess up her perfect red lipstick. It must be the cosmetic brand’s new long-wear kind, the one she insisted be named after her. “He asked where you were, and I told him,” she says. “Sorry, I obviously didn’t know he’d take the next plane out.”

“So his cousin wanted to check on the hotel, nothing wrong with that,” my father says. “Can we get back to the real issues at hand?”

“Which ones?” Seraphine asks dryly.

“Yes,” I say, conscious of the time. “What exactly did you want from me?”

My father balks. “That’s a little brusque of you, son.”

“Sorry,” I say with a sigh, sliding my hands into my pockets. I’m rarely rude with my parents, another trait that they passed down to me, even though there’s been a time or two when my temper has gotten the best of me. “I’ve got plans.”

“Again, who is she?” Seraphine asks.

I ignore her.

So does my father. “Well, as you know, we’ve got the ball and the show coming up, and we’re a little shorthanded.”

“Then hire more staff. We can afford it, can’t we?”

He nods, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We can. But I need someone to help keep them in line.”

“I assume you mean our family, whose praises you were just singing.”